Monday, February 25, 2013

Live and Learn

Saturday night was a good night for Mabrick. I received an email from HBHI's CEO on Friday. There was a corporation operation Saturday night and I needed to have my ship fired up and ready to go at the appointed time. So, at the appointed time I was on standby awaiting orders. I was ordered to get my butt to Purjola and pickup a Rifter the corporation had staged for the operation.

So I headed out of our class 6 home, negotiated my way down the pipe and entered high-sec 15 jumps from Purjola. On the way, I was informed there was a Cynosural Field Theory skill book in the cargo hold and enough liquid ozone to make the thing work. You see, we had a new ship to bring into the hole. I was given my first destination while en route. It was five jumps into low-sec - Egbinger to be exact.

That ties my longest jaunt through low-sec but it was nothing I hadn't done before. A quick check of the map showed the five systems to be pretty damn quiet. There were FAR more ships destroyed in Hek than those five systems together. I started the training and exited the station.

While I was on my way I got a quick schooling on how to light the cyno. It went something like this:

"So, how do I do this thing?" I asked.
"You click on the module and then tell us it's green," the CEO said.
"Then I just wait for the ship to jump in?"
"Yeah. He'll jump in, dock up and then you can wait to die."
"What? Why do you say that?"
"Because people just love to shoot cyno ships when they can't move."
"What do you mean 'when they can't move?'"

First I'd heard about it. Shit. I thought about complaining. But the CEO was in the other cyno fit Rifter and he was going first. I decided to wait until I found out how it went for him. He lit his cyno, our ship jumped in, it docked and everything looked okay for a minute or two. Then our CEO got blown up.

Great. Well, I was more than half way to my destination so no backing out. This was a volunteer operation anyway. I got to my last high-sec system and held up for my training to finish. That didn't take long and I was soon on my way again. The other side of the first gate had a criminal sitting on it. He didn't even try to lock me up. Rifters are fast and hardly worth the effort fortunately. The rest of the route was totally peaceful. I arrived at Egbinger, got my Rifter at least 5 kilometers from the station and lit the cyno.

Our ship jumped in, docked up and I started waiting. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Frack that's a long damn timer. And then the timer was done. No one in local showed the least interest in the Rifter on d-scan. I just lucked out I suppose.

Then I took a look at the route for my next, and the last, cyno system. What the hell! In comms I had to ask, "you guys know this is ten jumps into null-sec?"

"Yeah, that's where the hole is for bringing in our ship."

Great, that's just great. Now I knew I was going to die. There was nothing for it but to undock and hit warp. I informed the CEO, who by that point was on his way to jump system three, that he was backup.

I could drag this out and give you the blow by blow. However, suffice it to say I got out of the five low-sec systems even easier than I got in. Then I crossed high-sec as fast as the Rifter would go - which is pretty damn fast actually. Then I crossed the two low-sec systems to get to the gate for my first null-sec jump.

I engaged the gate on landing and jumped. The first thing I saw when my screen came back to life was a warp disruption bubble. I was not in it. There was a small fleet about 200 kilometers from me. I quickly located a celestial in the other direction and warped to a distance greater than 20 from it and less than 100 - you know why. Then I jumped to another celestial from where I could d-scan the next gate. It was clear so I proceeded to it and jumped.

Rinse lather repeat. Fortunately, I've been around long enough to have learned you don't jump gate to gate in null-sec. This was reinforced by my corp mates. It was not an uneventful trip. At one point I was followed by a Stiletto. I know he was following me because I added two more celestials to my system hopping to make sure. He landed right after me both times but never got close enough to even think about it.

Here's a neat trick for all of you who've read this far. When you are trying to shake someone, pick a planet on the other side of the system with as many moons as possible. Pick a moon at random and bounce to it. I picked a planet with 17 moons. From the other side of the system, he had no idea at which moon I landed. I was through my next gate before he picked me up again.

I did manage to land in one bubble.

[ 2013.02.24 04:29:00 ] (notify) You are within a warp disruption zone. Get 11500.0 meters from Mobile Medium Warp Disruptor I to warp.

It sucked me straight past my gate. My heart sank as I watched the gate pass under my unarmed Rifter when I should have been hearing a gate activation. When I hit the bubble I burned straight back to the celestial from which I'd warped. That got me out of the bubble in about two seconds and I was off again. An Atron showed up just as I activated my warp drive. I bounced to a couple more celestials and came back into the gate on the side opposite the bubble. It was Gunfight at the OK Corral by then.

This did not involve me so I quickly moved on. However, I did briefly wonder if the Stiletto was the one that was following me: damn funny thing if it was. I was just a few jumps from my destination and I crossed the intervening space efficiently and as quickly as possible. There was no one in local when I arrived. My luck was holding!

I warped to the wormhole post haste and lit the cyno. I made a short movie to commemorate the operation.

But in the end, I did get blown up. My own CEO came through the wormhole and did the dirty deed for me. Someone showed up in local and rather than risk it he decided to end the cyno countdown the old fashioned way.

And we discovered something very, very strange. You see, we were in the same fleet. And what's more, I still have a bit of the 50 mISK bounty Goonswarm put on my head when Retribution released. I got nearly 18,000 ISK from my own bounty! Click the screen capture to see the proof. CCP may want to look into that one, eh?

It wasn't until I was safely through the wormhole, and asked how he got there, that it dawned on us I didn't have to cross ten systems of null-sec after all. I could have just went in our high-sec entrance and come out our null-sec exit. In wormhole space it was two jumps. Damn. Had I done that, you all would have had a much shorter post to read. Live and learn, right?

3 comments:

just a note.While in Low sec it is "almost" OK to jump to a moon, in Null that is a highly hazardous thing to do.(Especially in Sov space) Many of the moons have POSes anchored on them. Either harvesting moongoo or as jump bridges. The higher value moons are protected, and the jump bridges are almost always dick POSes :)

I mostly warp to planets/belts because I deem those safer as moons for the reason given by the comment above. Just a matter of time until you warp into a hostile POS at the right range. Although I never had it happen to me.

I agree, Nefethrul has a very good point. I think overall, we need to remember that there is no such thing as truly safe in New Eden. There was a POS at that planet, only one though. I took my chances that I wouldn't land at that moon. It was the same chance my pursuer has in landing where I landed so I figured it was a reasonable risk. YMMV.